The visitors at the 2nd edition of the Indie Comix Fest in New Delhi witnessed a world of comics culture from Japan, Korea, and India.
The comics lovers loved the Manhwa – comics culture of Korea, alternative Japanese comics – ‘Gekiga’ and comics from India too.
Organised at Korea Culture Centre on November 25, the event was a contemporary cultural melting pot with many comic book artists, writers, illustrators and self-publishing labels displaying their wares. Anthologies, serialised floppies, hand-pressed zines, fold-out comics, screen-printed comics, posters, and a ton of other self-published content were seen.
The Fest provided a platform to self-publishing comix artists an access to the direct market where they showcased 100% of what they make. Readers were provided an opportunity to discover fresh content, original voices, and authentic stories.
The Fest is touring 7 cities during Oct 2018 –Dec 2018 from Goa, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru to Kochi.
Bharath Murthy introduced the audience to alternative Japanese comics – ‘Gekiga’, which literally means ‘dramatic pictures’ and was a name coined by manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi to a movement in Japanese comics in the late 1950s-60s. The focus was on more realism and narrative complexity, along with the invention of new graphics techniques to create comics for an adult readership. All this was way before the term ‘graphic novel’ was coined in the West. Along with actual samples of magazines of that period, Bharath will try and highlight some of the key features of Gekiga, which may be adapted by Indian comics artists in our context.
Husain Zamin is working since last 40 years in the comic industry. He is currently working on a comics “Chori ka Arop” crafted in classic Hindi comics format of 90’s, the main character in the comics advocate Vasant Sahni.
Korean Cultural Center also introduced the Manhwa, comics culture of Korea to Indian comics lovers.
Shambhu Nath Mahto is an artist, writer and a research scholar of History and is running a commix Theory – venture into comics culturally, aimed at working with new and experienced creatives and framing the medium culturally. Currently, he is bringing a series of “commix theory Calendar 2019 – legends of commix, Novels & Popular print culture. And a graphic novel on Savitri – mrityu Gyanam and superhero Badass.
Another artist Tanvi Pareek is a writer, a student of psychology and is currently as a writer in the upcoming Ghost of India- Horror comics Anthology Part -2.
Vichar Ke Achar – an art initiative started by Delhi based Manmeet Sandhu and Shrabani Dasgupta together have published a collection of one-page stories and other comics. They came up with the First and second issue of ‘Mahila Zine’. The zine is of, by and for ‘mahila’.
Sharad Sharma from Grass Root comics talked on how to use commix as a medium for advocacy and information dissemination, to promote literacy, comics as a teaching-learning tool. The organization has conducted more than 1000 comics workshop in most remote and disturbed areas of the globe and trained over 50,000 people, which includes farmers, villagers and common people.
Artists from ICF said – Comics have always been popular in our country, right from homegrown hits like Tinkle, Champak, Amar Chitra Katha, Diamond Comics (chacha choudary), and Raj Comics (nagraj, super commander dhruv), to American Comics from DC and Marvel, as well as select European hits (Tintin, Asterix). Manga has also grown in popularity over the last decade. Recently, over the last 5 years or so, we’ve seen a lot of independent comic publishing efforts. Some are labels (Holy Cow Entertainment, Yali Dreams, The Pulpocracy), BlueJackal – a platform for comics and picture books run by Vasvi Oza, Shivangi Singh, Shefalee Jain and Lokesh Khodke, Captain Bijli Comics – run by Vidyun Sabhaney and Shohei Emura and some independent creators (Sumit Kumar, Abhijeet Kini).
We felt the need to create a platform where we can encourage people to create and showcase more comics, without worrying about the commercial aspects of it. This is why table costs at our fest is always a flat 500 rupees, and visitor entry is always free. In some editions, because of sponsorship, we’ve even been able to make the table free. We encourage all kinds of comics. So you’ll a variety of comic types – from polished colour comics, to black and white zines, to even simple comics that are xeroxed and stapled. Our simple mantra is “More comics! Better comics! Affordable comics!”.
Thanks for the wonderful article